Liberty Line: A "This Day in History" Timeline of Events of Interest to Advocates of Libertyfor January
by Donald Burger, Attorney at Law

January 01:

1735: Paul Revere born in Boston, Massachusetts.
1863: President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation.
1892: The Ellis Island Immigrant Station opens in New York City
1907: Barry Goldwater born.
1942: 26 nations, including the United States, signed the Declaration of the United Nations.
1959: Fidel Castro leads Cuban revolutionaires to victory over Fulgencio Batista.

January 02:

1971: Congress bans all cigarette ads on radio and TV.
1974: President Nixon signs legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph if they want Federal Tax Dollars. January 03:

1777: Continental Army forces under General George Washington defeat the British in the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey.
1961: US ends diplomatic relations with Cuba.

January 04:
1965: President Lyndon Johnson outlined the proposals of his Great Society in his State of the Union address.

January 05:
1781: A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Virginia.
1949: In his State of the Union address, President Truman calls his policies the "Fair Deal."
1965: President Johnson announces the programs in his "Great Society."

January 06: 1759: George and Martha Washington married.
1941: Franklin Roosevlet delivered his Four Freedoms speech. The four freedoms he identified were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedomd from want and freedom from fear.

January 07:
1714: The first patent for a typewriter was issued in England.
1782:The Bank of North America opened in Philadelphia. It was the the first commercial bank in the United States.
1789: The first US Presidential election was held.
1798: Great Britain, to its everlasting shame, introduced the world's first income tax. 1953: President Truman, in his State of the Union Address, announced that the US had developed the hydrogen bomb.
1959: The US recognized Fidel Castro as head of Cuba's government.
1979: Vietnamese forces captured Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and overthrew the Khmer Rouge government.
1995: Murray Rothbard, free market economist, died.

January 08:
1815: US forces under the command of General Andrew Jackson defeated British forces at the Battle of New Orleans.
1959: Fidel Castro took control of Havana.
1964: President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared his "War on Poverty."

January 09:
1788: Connecticut became the 5th state to ratify the US Constitution.
1861: Mississippi seceded from the Union.
1913: Richard Milhous Nixon born.

January 10:
1776: Thomas Paine published Common Sense, calling for American independence.
1901: Oil is discovered at Spindletop, launching the oil boom in Texas.
1920: The League of Nations was established.
1928: The Soviet Union exiled Leon Trotsky.
1946: The first General Assembly of the United Nations convened in London.

January 11:
1757: Alexander Hamilton born in West Indies.

January 12:
1915: The US House of Representatives defeated a bill to give women the right to vote. 1932: Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
1945: German forces retreated during the Battle of the Bulge.

January 13:
1733: James Oglethorpe and 130 English colonists arrived at Charleston, South Carolina.
1978: Hubert Humphrey died in Waverly, Minn. at age 66.
1990: L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the nation's first elected black governor.

January 15:
1777: New Connecticut declared its independence. New Connecticut later became the State of Vermont.
1870: The Democrat Party was represented for the first time by the donkey in a cartoon by Thomas Nash in Harper's Weekly.
1929: Martin Luther King, Jr. born in Atlanta.
1943: Work completed on the Pentagon.
1973: President Nixon announced the suspension of all US offensive action in North Vietnam.

January 16:
1547: Ivan the Terrible is crowned Czar of Russia.
1883: U.S. Civil Service established.
1919: The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, approving prohibition of alcohol, was ratified by the necessary number of states. Of all the states, only Rhode Island refused to ratify it.
1944: General Dwight D. Eisenhower took command of the Allied Invasion Forces.
1991: Operation Desert Storm begin to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

January 17:
1706: Ben Franklin born.
1946: United Nations Security Council held its first meeting.

January 18:
1782: Daniel Webster born in Salisbury, New Hampshire.
1936: Author Rudyard Kipling died in Burwash, England.
1943: US imposes a war-time ban on pre-sliced bread.

January 19:
1736: James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, born in Scotland.
1807: Robert E. Lee born in Stratford, Virginia.
1808: Lysander Spooner born.
1825: Ezra Doggett and his nephew, Thomas Kerisett, obtained a patent for their process of storing food in tin cans.

January 20:
1265: England's Parliment meets for the first time.
1801: John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.
1887: US Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
1981: Moments after the US Presidency passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan, Iran released 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days.
1920: American Civil Liberties Union formed.

January 21:
1793: French King Louis XVI executed by guillotine.
1861: Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four other southerners resigned from the US Senate.
1908: New York City enacted an ordinance that made smoking in public by women punishable by a fine of $25 and ten days in jail.
1924: Lenin died of a stroke at age 54.
1950: A Federal jury in New York finds Alger Hiss guilty of perjury.
1954: The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched.
1977: President Carter pardons almost all Vietnam war draft evaders.

January 23:
1845: Congress decided all national elections will be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
1849: Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive an M.D. (from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y.).
1964: The 24th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, eliminating the poll tax.
1968: North Korea seized the US navy ship Pueblo, charging it had entered North Korean waters.
1973: It is announced that an accord has been reached to end the Vietnam War.

January 24:
1916: US Supreme Court rules in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 U.S. 1, 36 S.Ct. 236, 60 L.Ed. 493 that the federal income tax is unconstitutional.
1965: Winston Churchill dies in London at age 90.

January 25:
1915: Alexander Graham Bell began US transcontinental telephone service with a call between New York City and San Francisco.

January 26:
1784: In a letter to his daughter, Ben Franklin laments the choice of the eagle as the symbol of America. His choice: the turkey.
1836: The men of the Alamo sign a resolution to stay at the Alamo. "We cannot be driven from the post of honor."
1942: The first American expeditionary force to go to Europe during World War II goes ashore in Northern Ireland.

January 27:
1951: Atomic test takes place when Air Force dropps a one kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats.
1973: Vietnam peace accords signed in Paris, France.

January 28:
1868: Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified.
1973: A cease-fire went into effect in the Vietnam War.

January 31:
1606: Guy Hawkes, convicted for his part in the Gunpowder Plot against the English Parliment and King James I, is executed.
1865: General Robert E. Lee named commander-in-chief of CSA armies.
1950: President Truman announced he had ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb.